


Enigma

by MooseKababs



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Anatomy-defying pregnancies, Anxiety Attacks, M/M, Medical Procedures, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Reference to child loss/miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 11:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12630135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseKababs/pseuds/MooseKababs
Summary: Prowl, Swerve, and Ratchet are having a sparkling together, and Swerve is carrying, which isn't something that Cybertronians do-- but sometimes life throws you a fastball straight outta left field and you have to roll with it.





	Enigma

**Author's Note:**

> this is largely unbeta'd so smack me if you see any glaring mistakes, THANKS

Swerve could only hope that he’d stop thinking of everyone on the ship so fondly when he wasn't desperate for help. He liked newsparks, he really did, and he liked meeting new people, and he liked to think the whole  _ Swearth Incident  _ had proved he could handle a little pain. The shamble in his gait could convince  _ anyone  _ differently, his stark faceplate contorted in something that was supposed to be  _ concentration _ but had instead shot right past it on the intensity scale to land him somewhere between  _ incredibly pained  _ and  _ endlessly frustrated _ . Given a snapshot of his own face when done and asked to define exactly what emotion he was showing with it, he would round out his options and put it squarely in  _ strangled terror _ .

The fact that he wasn't saying anything, not a  _ single sound, _ would have alerted anyone who didn't bother to watch him struggle by, one hand on the wall and the other bracing his chest plate closed, stubby fingers denting the metal with every pulse of the tiny, impossible spark orbiting his that something was wrong. Except, there wasn't anyone. The halls were empty, devoid of anyone beside himself and the labored sound of his venting. Between shore leave, the mission that had arisen and intersected it, and the fact that it was effectively the middle of the off cycle, the kind of middle-of-the-off-cycle that meant  _ everyone was really sleeping _ if not performing the duties that kept the ship running, the halls were abandoned. 

He moved as fast as his feet could carry him, stopping and trying his comm every few feet in a bittersweet hope that it would start working again but receiving only static. He looked up and around, trying to gauge just how far he was from Whirl’s hab. 

Ah yes. 

_ Whirl _ . 

Whirl really was a good bot, he reasoned with himself over and over, maybe his methods were unorthodox but he really  _ did _ do his best at everything and try and do what was right. He had a good helm on his shoulders, even if it wasn't particularly screwed on quite straight. He shook his own head, rounding a corner with enough difficulty you might have thought the ship was on its end. Frag carrier coding, and frag carrying. Carrying wasn't even a… a  _ thing _ . Cybertronians didn't  _ carry _ young.

Arriving at Whirl’s door, he wanted a moment to even his vents, to appear unphased. Something basic in him told him it was a good idea to look as strong as possible in front of a possible enemy, and then he threw the thought out. Whirl had seen him worse than a little out of breath and he already knew that he outsped, outmaneuvered, outshot, and outfought Swerve any day. If he  _ really _ wanted to, say, pin him down with a pede and rip out his newspark, crush it in front of him and  _ laugh _ while he did it, he could do it. He could really, really do it.

Swallowing numbly around the lump in his throat, he blinked and realized there was no going back now. He had already knocked.

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Whirl answered his door in a flurry of anger and exasperation. His optic met nothing, and instinctively he looked  _ down _ , meeting the horrified faceplates of Swerve as he gaped up at him in return. His visor was bright and fritzing and his hands cradled his chest, one gentle and the other so rough and tight that two of Swerve’s digits were locked. He took in the sight, purged the anger from his field as best he could-- they'd all been briefed on the minibot’s condition, and he could be angry  _ after  _ Swerve explained himself-- and cleared his vocalizer.

“You uh,” his voice was rough and slow with sleep, something Swerve had never heard in him. Whirl’s vocalizer clicked an additional three times in a full reset before he finished, “You need something, short stuff?”

“Call Ratchet,” Swerve pleaded immediately, and although there was no  _ please _ there, the smallness of his voice communicated everything Whirl needed to know. His optic dilated and the helicopter crouched, slow, comming Ratchet internally and sending the ping to command, all of medbay, and Prowl as well. He was immediately flooded with so many return pings that he actually canted his helm away from his dominant audial, a full comm busting through the noise. He stood again. Turning his back from Swerve with a quick gesture to assure him he wasn't just  _ leaving him _ . 

Something in Swerve seized, and the  _ gentle  _ hand became as unforgiving as it's counterpart. He swore as the floor swung up to meet him, and Whirl’s panicked pedesteps were felt before they were heard.  He groaned, and he wanted to rub his face but something told him not to take his hands away from his chest.

So he didn’t.

“...just collapsed--...” Whirl’s reedy voice broke through the ringing in his audials and he groaned, trying to form the words around the noise to tell him to keep it down because that had really given him one  _ hell  _ of a processor ache. “Frag no! I didn’t-- He’s in the hall outside my hab, I di-- Listen, doc, if you don’t tell me how the hell to calm him down I think he’s gonna pop a panic bubble made out of his own  _ damn spark  _ and I really don’t want that pinned on me, so,  _ you know,  _ **_any time would be great.”_ **

Swerve considered that, really honestly considered that. He didn’t feel like he was panicking but then again, there wasn’t really a way to describe exactly what he was feeling.  Except tired. Something told him the obvious solution to that was to just go to sleep and so, in the lull of rational thought separation had granted him, he  _ did. _  
  


* * *

* * *

* * *

 

He woke what felt only moments later and the first thing he recognized was pain. Then,  _ exhaustion.  _ As his sensors came back to him he considered the rest of the situation, first by touch and then sound, then after that smell and taste and emf and last of all, sight, if he knew himself. He was very clearly in the medibay and he was hooked up to quite a lot of things, and every time he moved someone’s fingers would smooth across his cheek or squeeze his hand or pat his knee. The sounds had confirmed that; the voices of all five classically trained medics on the ship were entering his audials and bouncing around in his head. They were speaking that language that all doctors everywhere speak, the tonal one where everything said in a soothing, collected voice and like it’s a fact even if you were asking for something, like  _ This patient needs more pain killers, nurse,  _ sounded exactly like  _ can you please get more painkillers for this patient nurse-- _

Swerve realized he was drifting off before he could even crack his eyes open, but the next breath he took had filled his olfactory sensors with the smell of the medical bay and if he focused, the special oils that Ratchet used in the joints of his servos and had, one time, used in his. His face scrunched when a little more of the  _ whole picture  _ came together and the finer sensors of his face picked up the warmth from where the light above the medical table had been shining on him for a while.  It kept the cold of the room at bay comfortably and kept the comparatively bitter chill off his spark,  but on his face it was just unsuitably warm.  

“Hhgh,” He breathed out the first attempt at words and met no resistance, only lethargy. He let his helm loll and tried again, “Rach’, ‘s  _ too hot,”  _ he felt himself mumble, “turn up th’ cold.”

By his knee, where the reassuring touch of slender fingers hadn’t left the joint, he heard someone--  _ Velocity _ \-- giggle something muffled and sweet. The mirth spread around the room, and even  _ Swerve  _ was a little surprised and amused. He knew he obviously wasn’t in the wash racks, so why had he said…?  Regardless, his hands moved slowly and he felt them weighed like they were filled with water. Whoever was to his left breathed in sharply and there was a sudden lack of pressure, and then he heard Ratchet’s voice, from across from Velocity in his approximate map of the situation.

“Prowl,” Ratchet spoke in that same doctor’s voice they’d all been conversing in to get the winger’s attention. There was an audible noise, audible even to Swerve, as Prowl looked up from his position at the head of the mediberth. “Get his hands up there by you and hold ‘em. He likes when you hold his hands.”

It took some doing, and Swerve  _ tried  _ to assist but it was like someone had put the controller of his major ambulant systems into southpaw while he wasn’t looking. After a few seconds, Prowl’s digits were rubbing the tension out of Swerve’s limp servos and his helm had declined, watching his bond’s face again.

What a strange thought. It never failed to give Swerve pause. 

He managed to parse the room’s feel with his EMF, getting nothing but calm concentration from the doctors from his shoulders and down and  _ worry  _ from Prowl above him.  He considered that, as well; Ratchet wasn’t giving off any bad vibes, and Prowl  _ did  _ tend to be the more volatile of his triad-- besides himself, of course-- but it was possible that Ratchet was just clamping his field down and hiding behind the other medic’s fields in order to keep Swerve passive for the procedure and Prowl calm enough that  _ he’d  _  not stir Swerve, either.  Then again, Swerve  _ knew  _ Ratchet, and Ratchet was the best at his job. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Swerve  _ or  _ their weird carried baby, not if there was anything anyone short of Primus himself could do to help it. 

That line of thought seemed to quell whatever anxiety had stirred in the back of his processor when he asked himself why he needed five doctors, or why he needed doctors at all-- What had been so important that one of High Command and the  _ whole medical staff  _ had rushed back from their shore-leave-gone-awry to come deal with.  With that squared away, and consciousness proving to be a little too much pain to deal with as time ticked onward, Swerve descended towards the cushy blackness of recharge.

He was unable to make it there before the first twinge hit and he arched off the berth like a cracked whip. A whine left him and his optics snapped on, looking for the invader, the perpetrator.  He was terrified and furious and confused beyond words all at once as he surveyed the shocked faces of each mech in the room. First Prowl, beautiful, gorgeous Prowl, who’s falling in with Swerve and Ratchet upon the Lost Light had been as swift and relentless and wonderful as his tactics were. Crystalline optics looked back at him and he saw his own panic mirrored there, but before the rational part of him could scream to stop because he was hurting his very emotionally vulnerable bond, he was flicking his exposed optics to the first medic he could see. Which, unfortunately for the up-and-comer, was First Aid.

Standing opposite of Ambulon, who was doing the majority of the work in his chassis, the first real look was leveled on the red and white mech. Despite his face being obscured by a faceplate and a visor the hateful glower that Swerve leveled on him as his optics adjusted to working fully once more bore into the doctor’s own, reducing him to an uncertain puddle of nerves.

“Um,” He murmured, his hands hovering over  Swerve’s form by mere inches as he was assaulted by pure menace worthy of Megatron in the form of Swerve’s flickering EMF. “I think--”

He could hear the vent leave First aid as the glare was turned to Ambulon. The look sent plates clamping down and the memory was tagged as the first time Swerve had ever truly intimidated  _ anyone _ . His optics flickered to where Ambulon was coaxing a tendril of light that anchored the newspark to his own away, and his engine revved, stalling the process. Ambulon’s Hands stilled and he turned and murmured to Lancet quietly enough that Swerve’s audials couldn’t pick up what he’d said. The bastard had guarded his mouth so he couldn’t read it, either. Whatever it was, Ratchet had heard and his EMF was stained with concern, lambent optics looking from where Ambulon’s hand was stilled at Swerve’s spark up to his face. That tipped off something in Swerve that this was all wrong, that something was seriously wrong. Lancet had been sent off to get something and they were all looking at him with that gut-wrenching pity that was the only thing he ever seemed to get besides  _ disinterest  _ anymore, and he gathered himself and  _ yanked.   _ For as much as Prowl was disturbed, he caught the intention quickly and corrected his loss of Swerve’s hand quicker than Swerve could actually do anything with the leadened limb. 

“No,” Swerve said. He’d meant it, honestly, to come out as a  _ growl,  _ a command, but that affect he’d assumed, the one that had stilled both the primary orchestrators of his separation, had drained out of him when he’d caught sight of Ratchet’s face. “Don’t  _ touch  _ it! Don’t touch  _ me! Stop it!” _

His cries only gained vigor as he thrashed again, and before he returned them to the stiff grip at the head of the berth, Prowl kissed his hands.  Swerve looked between the faces of his doctors-- no, his  _ attackers,  _ something hissed-- and he puffed up his plating and tried to slam the cover of his chamber shut. There was nothing; the mechanisms moved but when they got to the point where the tiny servos would shutter plating together to crush Ambulon’s intrusive fingers, it met air warmed by excited photons. He let out a cry and tried to twist away as Ambulon channeled all the Ratchet he had in him and snapped over his shoulder,  _ demanding  _ Lancet hurry with whatever he was doing. 

“Ratchet,” He cried out, shaking his relevant knee to get his attention, yanking his hands to try and alert Prowl, sweet sweet Prowl. “Prowl! Ratchet! Please! Stop them!  _ Do something! Please!” _

It didn’t quite connect that Prowl was the one holding his hands. It didn’t parse out that they  _ were  _ doing something, that this was the only thing they could do, that he wasn’t under attack. He tried his best to squirm out of the hold as a medical port was accessed in his side and the cold, cold, cold rush of a deactivator took control of his circuits. He fought it with every bit of his being; his  _ baby  _ was at risk, his and Prowl and Ratchet, wonderful Ratchet’s baby was counting on him fighting off this coding patch. And his attackers. And then figuring out what was wrong, what had already been done, and fixing it  _ himself _ . 

Ratchet and Prowl shared a long, hard look to one another, something long suffering and grounding for both of them. Prowl would need it. He hadn’t let himself be weak in too long and now it was like breaking an egg; everything had come leaking out of him once his shell had cracked and when you looked at him in the middle of something like this, something  _ important,  _ something  _ close to the crack,  _ you could see his yolk seeping though like blood from a wound. Prowl was shaken by this and the outwardly phlegmatic mech held firm hands against Swerve’s wrists to keep him from hurting himself or the newspark. Below them, the minibot’s struggling crested with a cry and a flash of fritzing optics, leaking lacrimal cleanser in fat streaks down his cheeks.

“Please,” Swerve cried, his voice reedy with terror, “Please,  _ please, stop them! Prowl!” _

A choked noise left the winger and Ratchet did his best to send him soothing feelings across their bond and his EMF in tangent. Prowl calmed to a visible extent, but he was just as disturbed still, his helm hung. Swerve was simply groaning now, lips moving numbly to form words and failing, and as the conscious tension in his frame drained the other medics got back to their work. Ambulon’s work was efficient and clean, and the procedure was, for all of it’s interruptions, going faster than expected. Lancet was minding the precious,  _ priceless  _ protoform that was warmed precisely in an incubation pod, just a tiny dense template with a spark chamber. Under his hands two tendrils released at once, and Ambulon swore softly to himself as Swerve jerked unconsciously after it. Even  _ sedated  _ the minibot was ambulant enough to jerk and twist and he was making note after note on his hud.

Next time, Primus forbid, the patient would need physical restraints. 

He hoped there was never a next time. This was harrowing. He gently let the tendrils that had detached already coil around his digits as his thumb and forefinger rubbed gently down the lengths of the last of the five that had connected carrier to progeny. His servos were netted with a special device that echoed Swerve’s spark frequency, fooling the tiny being into thinking it was just  _ moving _ and not  _ leaving. _  He poked at the junction where the tendril met, weaving into the corona of Swerve’s spark, and watched as the newspark in his servos pondered and ho-hummed over the predicament it was in before the tendril arced with an electric noise,  _ snapped _ , and nestled with its compatriots in the field of Ambulon’s servos. 

A general sigh left every medic in the room. It was mostly over; the  _ hard part  _  was over, at least. He now had one of the easiest jobs in the world. Lancet rolled the incubator over as Ratchet and Prowl looked at the little thing that had been the total  _ thorn in their side  _ for the past meta-cycle, cradled in Ambulon’s hands as First Aid and Lancet worked to make sure everything was absolutely ready.

Ratchet was, to say the least, awestruck.  Swerve,  _ his Swerve,  _ his bond and the ship’s resident mouthy bartender and human media buff and  _ terrible shot  _ and  _ wonderful metallurgist  _ had literally just…  _ spawned this.  _ Out of damnably nowhere, he’d simply  _ created  _ one of the first new cybertronian sparks in millenia. In his own body. From his and Prowl’s and Swerve’s own sparks. He looks up and sees Prowl, servos knotted in caring ways into Swerve’s, tight and restricting and expecting the lurch that came with the final separation but not in any way tight enough to damage. His optics are caught on the newspark, door wings fanned wide and low in subdued wonder. There’s a tremor in his frame that Ratchet can detect, just a faint thing, but it gives away his stress more than anything else could. Clear optics follow the tiny spark as ambulon pivots, servos cupped as he worries them into the tiny spark chamber of pure sentio metallico, smiling in triumph as another of the big steps of  _ delivering a sparkling _ were ticked off. He disengaged the electromagnetic netting from his servos,  and immediately he could feel a tiny flash of fear and confusion before the protoform seemed to be noticed.  
  


Faster than it had done anything else, the tendrils snapped to explore the new space, finding the core catalyst and burning itself into it with ease. The little frame jerked and the tendrils receded into the newly ignited spark’s corona, and the lot of them watched in wonder as the frame’s front latched shut seamlessly into one solid piece to protect the new thing. The lid of the incubator was closed and latched shut to keep out any number of awful things that fell under the vague title of “precaution”, and the whole thing was wheeled to the head of the berth  beside Prowl. For his part, the winger was snapping his head between Swerve’s face, his spark chamber-- which was having it’s paneling replaced-- and the little form. Each attraction got a specific amount of time before he switched to the next, reluctant to stop watching any of them, and Ratchet found it sincerely endearing.

Which, he thought, was  _ weird,  _ but he liked it. He thought.

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Swerve came out of the sedation with a keen, fighting against his body to get up and fight; but then he felt the crushing  _ emptiness,  _ the  _ loneliness,  _ and knew he’d failed. The newspark was gone. His chamber was empty beside himself. His keen became a  _ wail,  _ and he threw an arm across his face. 

He’d be given a gift from Primus and he’d let it slip through his fingers. He’d let something so wonderful  _ go.  _ He didn’t even take the time to assess his surroundings, to notice he was hooked up to a spark monitor and under a blanket and being taken care of, simply opening his mouth and lament aloud for all to hear. On a sobbing invent he caught the sound of pedesteps and he ground at his face with his servos to try and clear his optics of solvent, instead just whining into them.

“Swerve,” Someone said, someone good and sweet and wonderful, “Wake up. You’re not--”

He fought to follow the instructions, the clearest thing in the maelstrom of emotion and failure and fatigue, forcing systems to cycle on until he could let his optics focus in front of him through the filter of his tears. He breathed harshly, panting against his palms as he slid them over his faceplates, and he looked to see who’d spoken to him. 

It was Ratchet.

He cracked again, but two fields met him with comfort and strength and support and he yanked the emotion in as Ratchet spoke again, “Just breath, sweetspark.”

And so Swerve  _ did.  _ Ratchet counted for him while his stubby digits wrapped around one of Ratchet’s hands and he threatened to break because he remembered he had to tell him that he’d  _ lost the newspark-- _

Prowl’s servo rubbed a calming circle on his cowl and it tore him out of the downward spiral that would have snapped him right in half.  He tried to focus on the feeling and a few times he lost his grip, his faceplates crumbling, but every time he just focused on the feeling of Prowl’s servo on his back and Ratchet’s servo in his and their voices chorusing in his square-breathing counting, and he did his best to keep real, honest time with his venting.

Finally, after what seemed like hours he looked at them, faceplates boldened by their protective and loving postures and he simply blurted it out. Everything was better when it was faster, he’d reasoned with himself, and so he’d just…  _ said it. _

“I-I”, his voice was staticky and cut out on him and he looked quickly between the two of them, one servo grasping from Prowl’s. He wanted to remember what it felt like to hold it one last time, before they left him to rust. When Prowl provided it he slotted his fingers between the wingers and took a few square breaths, trying again. “I lost the newspark, I-It’s--”

Immediately Ratchet shot stiff as a rod and looked at him with the most serious, loving face Swerve had ever seen, and Prowl’s hand stilled, wrapping around his shoulders to pull him close to the winger’s chassis.

“Primus,” Prowl breathed above him, and Swerve could  _ feel  _ his resolve to stay calm slipping.

“Swerve, look at me.” Ratchet said, and Swerve did. He looked into Ratchet’s eyes and expected anger but instead he got understanding and strength. He got passion. “Our newspark is  _ perfectly healthy.  _ The protoform took seamlessly and we have ourselves a healthy little mechling sleeping in the next room.”

“W-What?” Was the only thing he could manage out of his vocalizer, looking from Ratchet’s optics to Prowl’s, disbelief easier to read off his face than off a datapad. He shuffled in his seat, “ _ What?!” _

Prowl offered a smile, ready to have heard joy back in his bond’s voice at last. He lets his hands slip away, walking to wheel the incubator into the room Ratchet and Swerve were talking together in, but when he arrived he took a moment to just admire the little mechling. They estimated he wouldn’t be minibot size for a few meta-cycles yet, but he was stark white and red with black accents here and there. He had a little black chevron smack dab above chubby white faceplates, sedate and nearly angelic in his slumber, little red servos beside his primarily red helm. Behind him little doorwings had sprouted in tiny buds, and his plating was covered in a little blanket of a grey color that somehow didn’t clash with the little mech who looked more arbitrary than orthodox-- as if the parts of his genitors that he’d inherited had been of little consequence to what he really came out looking like.

But then, as he rolled the little incubator pod toward the room off the main medbay that Swerve and Ratchet was in, he could tell that the considerations were there. The chevron was present in both Ratchet  _ and  _ his own frame. Both Swerve and Ratchet had red hands. He wondered if the sparkling would get to be his own mech or would be a summation of parts of his genitors, solely; Then he stopped, wondering if perhaps, because Swerve and Ratchet both had scientific affinities, that would mean the sparkling would lean toward that arm of academics as well.

And then he paused once more, just inside the room, watching Swerve’s face light up like an oil field under a strike of lightning. His fingers skirted across the glass of the dome atop the incubator and he nearly pressed his face to the glass, crooning loving comments to the little one. He looked up at Ratchet, face pensive.

“C-Can I-- Can I  _ hold him?”  _  he asked, and his voice was full of emotion. Ratchet put in a comm to Ambulon, who had headed up the Medbay’s spark specialties in general and then taken the lead on this little anomaly, as well. Ambulon remotely viewed the readout of the incubator and commed back an affirmative, and Ratchet moved to fulfill his exhausted bond’s wish.  The incubator opened with a hiss of atmosphere escaping and the Medic collected the little thing, able to cradle it in his two servos, pausing to have prowl help him wrap the thermal blanket around his little body before he turned and presented him to Swerve.

Swerve took the sparkling with reverent care, swallowing down his sudden anxiety that he would drop him or hurt him-- he was too tired to hurt him and dropping him would only be the short distance from his arms to the top of the berth. Not enough to permanently hurt him. Besides, Ratchet and Prowl were both here and they wouldn’t let anything happen. He cradled him in his servos and looked at the little body that fussed in the cold and knew immediately to cradle the thing to his spark to warm it. He thumbed across swollen, flushed faceplates and caressed the little thing’s helm, bringing the tiny black chevron to his lips and peppering kisses across it, fingers stroking down little arms and into the cradle of tiny palms. Tears welled in his uncovered optics and he shuddered in a breath, holding the sparkling back to look at him. His smile was soft and genuine and heartbreakingly loving, and he sat the sparkling back against his plating to lull the fussing away with the purr of his heavy engine. The little face twisted and settled, once again assuming the cherubic appearance it had while he'd slumbered in the incubator, and he choked on his vents.

“Hello, little thing,” He cooed, stroking tiny faceplates, “Welcome to the world…!”

**Author's Note:**

> If i said to you, "this fic is literally word for word a fever dream i had in august of 2016" would you be terribly surprised?
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
